How Extreme Budget Travelers Think

Travelers who post on the various online travel communities, as well as many of the other BoardingArea bloggers, are little short of amazing when it comes to finding and/or developing tremendously affordable travel deals.

But can they help *Touring Ted* who wants to make the following trip, all on less than £10,000?

I want to go to West Coast South America, Buenos Aires, California/Kansas, South East Asia, Indonesia and Australia and New Zealand. Spending a decent amount of time in all places.

It should be noted that *Touring Ted* posted this question on the Horizons Unlimited forums – a travel community focused primarily on motorcycle and bicycle travel that often includes much more camping out than ordering in. But Ted is specifically looking to complete this trip without bringing a cycle of any type.

Most who reply say it can’t be done – at least not if Ted is committed to keeping California and Kansas on the itinerary. Remove the U.S. part of the itinerary though, and not only do some think it can be accomplished within budget, but even well within budget:

10k is a fortune in my humble opinion, I would be happy doing the same trip with half that amount … if you want to go somewhere and travel for six months and live on seven quid a day, go to India! The rupee nose dived against the pound last year and until now has not recovered. ~ridetheworld

10k is plenty.. I did UK to Nepal (4 months) and 8 months living in Nepal (not really earning there) on 6k. ~Fern

Buy a RTW ticket that includes a few domestic flights & start/end points where you travel overland in between … My daughter spent a year travelling in 2008 (spent £6k), here’s what she did: UK – SE Asia – Australia – NZ – Chile – Argentina – UK … I went with her to SE Asia where we hired a 400cc bike for £8 per day, a 125cc step-thru cost £2.50 per day! ~pheonix

This clearly isn’t how most readers of BoardingArea would opt to travel, but I find the suggestions offered by the posters in this thread to be quite interesting in that they approach travel from a completely different perspective. One of the posters – bobbyrandall – goes so far as to suggest taking up fishing as a hobby … and means of acquiring meals.

But beyond what can be gleaned from this thread, I thought it would be interesting to draw its attention to the BoardingArea crowd, as many of you can probably offer suggestions that the typical member of the Horizons Unlimited community would never consider in their wildest dreams.

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Comments

Good article. I backpacked throughout Europe, India, Africa, and South America before the recession and do not regret those experiences one bit. In fact, I feel it’s a great way to travel for someone that age since it’s a lot easier to meet people in the same age group. Now that I’m in my 30s, I do prefer the BoardingArea type of travelling in J. Regardless if you’re a BoardingArea type traveler or extreme budget traveler, both types love love love great deals! 🙂